Neda

I held my head in hands, and I trembled.
The cries from the crowd and the girl in the camera.
I said, in a prayer, a kind of surrender I wished her peace, wondered what she rendered.

Neda, you made a place for the innocents, a prayer for the dissidents.
Afraid I gave up; I never thought the world could be so small.

And the loss of your innocence wasn’t enough, I guess.
The cost of what you’re holding in wasn’t everything.
All the leaders say, “they’ll forget someday,”
but what you’d live to see would take their breath away.

These ragged smoldering lines and these embers,
the cries in the night to say they remember the face of a girl,
who faithful and tender, wanted only peace and not to surrender.

Neda, your mother can’t cry for your memory or mourn for the tragedy.
They tore your grave up.
I never thought the world could be so small.

And the loss of your innocence wasn’t enough, I guess.
The cost of what you’re holding in wasn’t everything.
All the leaders say, “they’ll forget someday,”
but what you’d live to see would take their breath away.

And the flowers on your grave.
And the things you gave away were another kind that day.
And the flowers on your grave.

And the loss of your innocence wasn’t enough, I guess.
The cost of what you’re holding in wasn’t everything.
But all the people say, “we won’t forget the day, and what you lived to see takes our breath away.”

Neda, you made a place for the innocents, a place for the dissidents.
We nearly gave up.
I never thought the world could be so small.